randy@xanadu.com (Randy Farmer -- A survivor of the Lost Patrol) (06/01/91)
A reply to Round One of the Cyberspace Conference debate:
First let me say a huge THANKS to all of those who have responded to my
initial call for debate. And let this message be a further invitation for
more replies to this thread. I am especially looking for replies from
literary critics.
A. Stone and M. Benedict point out that I over-generalized my initial
argument by breaking the conference into two groups: The software engineers
and the literary critics.
I concede the point. I did this on purpose, to avoid getting more
specific about exactly which presentations fell into which category. I
found I was able to understand the presentations of everyone EXCEPT the
literary critics. I understood the anthopologists, the artists, etc..
A. Stone says the software engineers are as bad at communicating clearly as
everybody else. Again I agree, and thought I pointed this out in my original
article. If anyone cares to tell me how *my* presentation might be better
understood, I'll gladly make changes. Is this true for the literary critic?
She also asks "Why didn't the SEs say ''I don't understand a word you're
saying?''". I've got lots of excuses here (maybe not good enough, but here
they are) 1) I was in shock 2) I thought it was *my* fault 3) The speaker
had already run over time and lost me in the first 5 minutes 4) It'd be RUDE!
Now I know better, I'll risk being rude.
I don't accept that language can't be made 'mostly' plain. Sure, some stuff
won't be able to be translated, fine! Just as long as I can follow your
thesis, premise and conclusion, and pick out a few supporting arguments
along the way.
I must address the question "Where were you when the call went out for the
1992 Conference Comittee?". 1) Giving a demo of Cyberspace and 2) Very
confused about what was going on with this conference. It took me over a
month to get my thoughts together on this subject. I'm ready for the tap
now, if'n you really want me.
Lastly, I never said I could do better. I said WE could do better, and that
we MUST do better.
Sandy, William sat behind me at the conference. I think you owe him an
apology ;-).chalmers@europarc.xerox.com (Matthew Chalmers) (06/02/91)
In article <1991May31.191915.1712@xanadu.com>, randy@xanadu.com (Randy Farmer -- A survivor of the Lost Patrol) writes: > And let this message be a further invitation for > more replies to this thread. I am especially looking for replies from > literary critics. > > A. Stone and M. Benedict point out that I over-generalized my initial > argument by breaking the conference into two groups: The software engineers > and the literary critics. > > I concede the point. I did this on purpose, to avoid getting more > specific about exactly which presentations fell into which category. I > found I was able to understand the presentations of everyone EXCEPT the > literary critics. I understood the anthopologists, the artists, etc.. > > A. Stone says the software engineers are as bad at communicating clearly as > everybody else. Again I agree, and thought I pointed this out in my original > article. If anyone cares to tell me how *my* presentation might be better > understood, I'll gladly make changes. Is this true for the literary critic? I came away from CyberConf2 equally bemused by many of the presentations by (to carry on the acknowledged generalisation) the literary critics. I think that the point should be made, though, that one of the sources of confusion was the difference in presentational style between the two camps. In talking with the 'social science types' here in EuroPARC it seemed that this generalisation about the LCs might be true: they usually present papers as opposed to doing presentations. To clarify: it seemed to me at the time that the LCs would step up to the lectern with a fistful of densely typed sheets, and would then read the text of what was essentially their full paper. In contrast, the SEs would step up with some comparatively brief slides and would then use these as a rough guide as to what they wanted to say. It seemed as if the LCs read out texts which they actually expected the audience to read for themselves at some later date, whereas the SEs described the work which might also be covered in more detail in a paper somewhere and sometime. I suppose this reflects the different levels of esteem for (and centrality of) deftness of language use in the two fields. Each camp also tended to refer to its own bodies of basic work, bibliographies and 'personal bibles': just babble to the other camp, of course. Maybe this situation will diminish as the amount of work presented to mixed audiences (such as that at CC2) increases, and more lastingly, as the amount of work *published* within a wider - but still mixed - audience increases. Still, the culture gap was obvious, and I really don't know whether it might ultimately be bridged. I hope it will before the SEs slope off towards CHI, CSCW and SIGGRAPH, and the LCs slope off towards Chiba (wherever the hell that really is). Regards, --Matthew